1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to novel enzyme-decomposed materials from laver (a seaweed) which have a wide variety of effective pharmacological actions, as well as uses thereof.
2. Discussion of the Background
Heretofore, laver has been used exclusively as food, but the present inventors have focused their attention on the functions and components of laver and extensively studied decomposed materials from laver to utilize them in other fields. For example, the present inventors have decomposed laver with pepsin to obtain a peptide mixture as a substance having a wide variety of effective functions including antihypertensive action, and previously filed this substance for a patent (JP-A 10-175997).
The peptide mixture described above can be used in a pharmaceutical preparation as an antihypertensive agent or in health food having an inhibitory action on calcium precipitation, an anti-mutagenic activity, a plasma and hepatic cholesterol-reducing action, an effect of reducing blood sugar levels, an effect of improving hepatic functions, an anti-oxidant effect and a SOD-like activity, but the enzyme-decomposed product when used as a pharmaceutical preparation should further be purified to increase its action. Further, when it is used as food that does not require such high biological activity as in a pharmaceutical preparation, polysaccharides remain in the enzyme-decomposed material to make it highly viscous when dissolved in an aqueous solvent, so there is the problem that unless it is purified to certain degrees, its use is limited. Further, the enzyme-decomposed material tastes bitter or unfavorable smells, thus making its use limited.
The object of the present invention is to provide enzyme-decomposed materials from laver which are improved so as to be further readily usable in a wide variety of uses such as pharmaceutical preparation, food etc., thus solving the problems described above.